LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW
COURT OF THE MEN
Sun. Sept. 2nd, 2018
My longest blog yet, I think.
Part One.
There was a reason why the Temples
of Zerubbabel and Herod had a Court of the Women and a Court of the Israelites
(the latter with a masculine plural Hebrew suffix, which turns out to signify a
Court of the Jewish Men). The Court of
the Women really signified the Court of the Women and Children.
The Court of the Men really meant
the Court of the Grownups Who Have Temporarily Stepped Away from the Children.
Part Two.
The trick or deal was, that in
Ancient Jewish religion, only the men were allowed to step away temporarily
from the children. This brings us to a
point where I think the Romans were more advanced than the Jews. The Romans did not create a history which
turns out to have an equal number of emperors and empresses. What the Romans did have, however, before
they changed from a republic to an empire, was that women had the right to
vote.
The war between the Romans and the
Jews (66 to 70 A.D., some thirty years after Jesus was crucified) was a
textbook case of a very bloody culture war, which ended with a crushing victory
for one side and a crushing defeat for the other. But I believe that in a culture war, neither
side is one hundred percent right, and some kind of compromise is always
superior to the outcome where you have a crushing victory for one side and a
crushing defeat for the other. So I will
balance off my remark about the Romans being more advanced than the Jews in
women's rights, by pointing to another area in which the Jews were more
advanced than the Romans. The area of
crucifixion.
Crucifixion was invented by the
Romans, and it is a cruel way to kill a person, aimed at criminals and slaves. Martin Hengel in his book Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly
of the Message of the Cross -- please imagine quotation marks around the
word "folly" because it is not an un-Christian book -- documents the recent
existence of a little group of scholars with their pants on fire who believed
that crucifixion was not all that painful. Hengel proves that group of scholars wrong,
and I'm with Hengel.
Part Three.
To regroup, we have suggested so
far that the Jews in the time of Jesus did not have either advanced or
admirable ideas about women's rights. We
then took off on a tangent to add that does not mean we think the Romans were to be praised for their actions in Palestine. We now return to the theme we have stated,
that those two courts of the temple in the days of Jesus, the Court of the Women
and the Court of the Israelites, performed a function which still needs to be
performed in religion today: the function of creating a temporary separation,
either during the time of worship or sometime near the time of worship, between
adults who are with children, and adults who have temporarily stepped away from
the children.
In the churches I've worshipped in,
it is a difficult separation, surrounded by negotiations! I will come back to the reason why it is
worth doing. First: something about the
difficulty of doing it. It reminds you
of the story of the sisters Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42, doesn't it? One sister Mary sat down and listened to
Jesus's teaching, while the other sister Martha prepared dinner. Martha said to Jesus, Mary needs to help me with
the work of the house. Luke writes that
Jesus began his answer to Martha by saying her name twice. Her name twice -- the gospel writer's way of indicating,
that Jesus talked patiently to the two sisters.
His answer was like this: it is good that one listens to me, and the
other one does the work of the house. But
there is so much between the lines -- if everything that is between the lines
in the Bible were written down, it would be twice as long! I calculate that Martha was trying to set a
good example for Mary: Martha began by thinking to herself, if I do what is
needful, then Mary will soon join me.
But Martha's idea, if I set a good example, Mary will follow me, did not
work out. So Martha changed her tactic: perhaps
it is better to bring the division of labor out in the open. But Jesus was more focused on giving Mary the
chance to hear the rest of what He had to say, than He was on clarifying the
division of labor for future believers.
I calculate that we liberal
Christians do have a belief about the division of labor, namely this: turn
about is fair play. The Christian who is
one day with the Grownups Who Have Temporarily Separated Themselves from the
Children, will on another day be with the Grownups Who Are with the
Children. "Turn about is fair play"
aims to liberate both Mary and Martha, and to draft the men as well to take
turns being among the Adults Who Are with the Children.
(Parenthetically, the story of Martha
and Mary reminds us that the big divide between liberal Christians and
conservative Christians is not in the Bible, but in the commentaries. If you read Luke 10:38-42 in the Bible in a
conservative church and then read it in a liberal church, it's pretty nearly
the same story.)
Back to the point. One day an adult worshipper worships in the
Court of the Adults Who Are with the Children, and another day the same adult
worships in the Court of the Adults Who Have Temporarily Separated Themselves
from the Children. I sense that --
though there are many negotiations -- that is a step in the right direction.
Part Four.
Now as promised, we come back to
the matter of why it is a good thing, that there should be a Court in the
temple for Grownups Who Have Temporarily Stepped Apart from the Children. Here it is: not all the Bible has to tell us,
is written for children. I will give you
my example. It is the almost-sacrifice
of Isaac by his father Abraham in Genesis chapter 22. The outcome of the story is contained in
verses 10 to 18 (in the Revised English Bible version):
10 He [that is, Abraham] reached out for the
knife to slay his son, 11 but the angel of the LORD called to him from
heaven, 'Abraham! Abraham!' He answered,
'Here I am!' 12 The angel said, Do not raise your hand
against the boy; do not touch him. Now I
know that you are godfearing man. You
have not withheld from me your son, your only son.' 13
Abraham looked round, and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its
horns. He went, seized the ram, and
offered it as a sacrifice instead of his son.
14 Abraham named that shrine 'The
LORD will provide'; and to this day the saying is: 'In the mountain of the LORD
it was provided.' 15 Then the angel of the LORD called from heaven
a second time to Abraham 16 and said , 'This is the word of the LORD: By
my own self I swear that because you have done this and have not withheld your
son, your only son, 17 I shall bless you abundantly and make your
descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the
seashore. Your descendants will possess
the cities of their enemies. 18 All nations on earth will wish to be blessed
as your descendants are blessed, because you have been obedient to me.'
Isaac wasn't Abraham's only son,
because Ishmael was also Abraham's son.
It is a yucky Biblical bending of the truth. But back to the point: The Bible is clear
about the moral of the story. Abraham is
blessed by God because Abraham was obedient.
But I tell you this: we have to
ask this Bible story the question which Micah asks of God's worshippers in his
chapter 6 verse 8, What is it that the LORD requires of you?
O Bible story of Abraham and Isaac:
what is it that the LORD God requires of you?
The LORD requires of you, that you
teach that human sacrifice is wrong.
That is what Genesis 22 the first
to fourteenth verses teach. They taught
Abraham, and they teach us, that human sacrifice is wrong.
In complete truth I tell you, that
God did not enter into this Bible story to teach Abraham obedience. God asked Himself, How will I teach my
servant Abraham that human sacrifice is wrong, and how will I teach it to him unforgettably,
so that he and his descendants will never forget it?
God answered Himself, I will
pretend to tell Abraham to sacrifice his son, of whom I said to him in the last
chapter 'it is through Isaac's line that your name will be perpetuated.'
And God said to Himself, If
Abraham makes to obey me, I will stop him from killing his son; but if Abraham
disobeys me, I will say to him, 'Blessed are you, Abraham, because you knew
that human sacrifice was wrong before I told you.' And God said to Himself, Either way, I will
make known to Abraham that human sacrifice is wrong, in a way that his
descendants will never forget.
WHAT THEN is Genesis 22:18? "your descendants are blessed, because
you have been obedient to me." It
is window dressing added to verses 1 to 14, because the children were
listening.
Whenever the children are
listening to the Torah, the lesson is always about obedience.
That is why St. Paul said that
what is taught first to Christians is milk, and what is taught later to mature
Christians is meat (or at the least translation, solid food!).
The grownups need to hear
additional lessons, beyond the lesson of obedience.
Grownups sometimes have to be
disobedient. Grownups sometimes have to
say "Can't do that, General!"
That is what Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. said to William Calley at the My
Lai massacre: "Can't do that, Lieutenant." And Hugh Thompson went home justified in the
eyes of the LORD.
That's a fine howdy-doody, turning
a lesson about the wickedness of human sacrifice into a lesson about
obedience! And it's all the fault of the
people who said, there are children present, therefore the leson HAS to be
about obedience!
There!! I came to my point. There has to be a separate Court, so that,
when the grownups have temporarily stepped away from the children, the grownups
can get in some Bible study, where the lesson isn't always obedience,
obedience, obedience! Sometimes the
lesson has to be about the wickedness of human sacrifice. Sometimes the lesson has to be about what the
poet and hymnwriter William Alexander Percy said, "The peace of God, it is
no peace, But strife sowed in the sod. Yet brothers pray for but one thing -- The
marvelous peace of God!" (
http://www.covert.org/georgetown.html
but labeled by my computer "not secure." Apparently I remembered it wrong -- I thought
it was "Strife closed in the sod.")
Sometimes the lesson is a painful and scary point for grownups to ponder,
when their health is good and their constitution is strong, and they are in the
quiet moments between duties.
Part Five.
Now it's time to talk about the relationship between the
children's Sunday School teachers, and the theologians. I will tell you a parable. The theologians wished to express their
gratitude to the children's Sunday School teachers, so the theologians gave a
banquet to which the children's Sunday School teachers were all invited. The theologians asked the cooks to prepare a
feast to honor the children's Sunday School teachers, and the cooks complied. But the children's Sunday School teachers all
thought that the invitation was for one of the others. One of them made one excuse for not coming,
and another one made another excuse for not coming. So the cooks and the theologians had to eat
all the food themselves.
The moral of the parable is that ain't right, and we know better! I know a church where both the children's
Sunday School teachers and the teachers of the adult Sunday School classes were
invited to a banquet, and all of them who weren't sick came, and a theologian
came and spoke to them, and the food was delicious, and the teenagers helped
serve the meal, and God was glorified!
But in spite of that, there is more to be said. In fact, the relationship between the
theologians and the children's Sunday School teachers is not as beautiful as it
could be, and as it ought to be. We all know
a fact about the children's Sunday School teachers which we ought to honor, but
somehow, we fail to honor this fact.
What we all know is that the children's Sunday School teachers are the
first teachers of the Bible. Here and
there you come across a child who learns his or her Bible from their parents;
and here and there you come across a child whose parents give them a book of
Bible stories, saying "Read this," and the child reads the book of
Bible stories and learns about the Bible.
But in most cases, the Christian child's first learning about the Bible
is from their children's Sunday School teachers.
Every generation of pedagogy goes into this universal and
interdenominational Christian project of teaching the children about the
Bible. The Ancients say "children
need heroes" and the Moderns say "learning must be
age-appropriate," and it all gets included, and God is glorified.
The children's Sunday School teachers are doing an honorable job,
and the theologians are doing an honorable job -- this is my testimony; I am
speaking from personal experience here! -- but those two groups of grown-ups
don't actually get around to honoring each other very often, and somehow all
the other grown-up Christians don't notice the fact that, except at that
wonderful once-a-year banquet when there is a sort of a truce, they didn't
actually honor each other.
The truth about Sunday School is exactly the same as the truth
about Monday to Friday school. Say
it! The children's teachers don't have
time to teach the children everything.
The problem is not merely, that not all teaching which could be done in
theory, is age-appropriate. No, the
problem is bigger than that: God did not design us to stop learning at the age
of eighteen, or at the age of twenty-two, or at any other age. Adult Sunday school is useful and good
because we all spend the rest of our lives plugging in gaps in our knowledge,
and that's not some kind of embarrassment -- it's the way God intended our
lives to be!
We believe that when children's Sunday School teachers have
finished teaching the children, there is still more Christian education for the
erstwhile children -- now teenagers -- to learn. And when the teenage Sunday School teachers
have finished teaching the teenagers, there is still more Christian education for
the erstwhile teenagers -- now adults -- to learn. We stop spending all the day long in
classrooms, and we start earning our bread by the sweat of our brow, but we
don't stop learning.
I will single out one particular area of teaching and growth for
adult Christians. Namely, learning difficult and useful information about
foreigners. The information that many
citizens of foreign countries believe in the same God you and I believe in, and
what's more, that many of them are doing just as good a job as you or I in
putting that faith we miraculously share across national boundaries into
practice -- that information is specifically for grownups, or mature believers,
to use St. Paul's word. It is simply too
hard for children to grasp. And
teenagers are busy living through the most hellacious period of a Christian's
life -- if we set aside portions of old age, which are sometimes like a second
teenage, or at least like being shot at.
FindamateGiveupyourlifeforyourcountrysomeofyouBythewaythepeopleontheothersideofthewararenotallbadEarnyourlivingbythesweatofyourbrow. As the man said in the movie when he looked
at the grotesquely unstylish house, DAMN.
But, the rest of us grownup Christians, who hadn't actually
noticed that the theologians and the children's Sunday school teachers weren't
actually honoring each other most of the year until I mentioned it a moment ago
-- we can help. We can help them honor
each other. This is my vision, or part
of it. We, not only the cooks, but all
the grownups who simply aren't teachers -- if we are living our walk right, we
go to the door of the children's Sunday School teacher, and we honor him or
her, and we go to the door of the theologian, and we honor him or her -- we are
like Martha, trying to set a good example.
But we can also spell it out. We
can encourage the theologians and the children's Sunday School teachers, to
honor each other. The one group are
teaching the learners who need milk for nourishment, and the other group are
teaching that special subset of the young adults who are the edgy advanced learners,
the disciples of the theologians. They are all involved in a giant
complicated project planned out by God, to help learners in every stage of
their journey. As Chaucer said of the
teachers, "And gladly would they learn, and gladly teach."
Part Six.
We are getting near the end of our essay. I read a funny, funny piece of literary criticism
in the magazine called The New Yorker
fifteen years ago. It said that Margaret
Wise Brown's children's book Goodnight
Moon with pictures by Clement Hurd was a book about death. In the book, the grandmother rocks in the rocking chair in the child's room and lulls the child tired at the end of the day. "And a little old lady whispering
hush." The literary critic said the
little old lady was actually talking to the other old people in the family. "We have to slow down. We have to stop being fretful. We have to go to sleep in a little while." That's awkward y'all. I said to my folks "No, Goodnight Moon is not about death! It's about putting the children to sleep so
the grownups can have a little bit of grownup time to themselves at the end of
the day!" Today, I am standing
beside the me of fifteen years ago. I'm
agreeing with the me of fifteen years ago.
Goodnight Moon is about
putting the children to sleep so the grownups can have a little grownup time to
themselves at the end of the day.
The temple architects designed the Court of the Israelites --
which we have renamed the Court of the Grownups Who Have Temporarily Stepped
Away from the Children -- for that same reason: because the grownup Christians need
a little grownup Christian time to themselves.
Frank Newton
